The last few months blogging has been great and have been a nightmare at the same time. I started at the beginning of August 2006, so I am in my 4th month of blogging.
The reason I started writing a blog was down to three people:
Jack Black from Mindstore, Jack is a Scottish motivational speaker and I went to see him in Glasgow 2 times in 1995 and again in 1996 and his seminars changed my thinking about my life. When I went the second time I said to my friend 'That's what I want to do with my life'. I wanted to affect people's life so they would have the power to change themselves, give them the tools so to speak. So 10 years on I have started that dream and I am only in the beginning phase and writing a blog is helping the dream along.
Steve Pavlina from stevepavlina.com - Steve was the inspiration for the blog. I found Steve's site by accident and suddenly saw a way of reaching a potentially huge audience. His posts were also inspiring and I found he thought along the same lines as me, which I thought were quite 'out there', it turned out I wasn't the only one. I then asked myself how I was going to devote time to blogging when I had a full time job, a part time web design business and a family. Steve's site gave some helpful tips.
Darren Rowse from problogger.net - Gave me the logistical information I needed to start up the blog and continue it. His site is chock full of helpful information for any blogger just starting out of for seasoned pro's.
It's been a tough 4 months as I wasn't getting anybody to the site, I was getting around 10-20 visitors per day in the first month which rose to around 50 per day in September, 100 per day in October and to around 200 per day in November. If it keeps going the way it's going I should be reaching my goal of 1000 visitors per day by February 2007.
I also noticed the lack of comments, which frustrated me for a while but when I let the need go they started commenting.
I also concentrated on making money from Google adsense and I have recently let that need go also and the money is starting to trickle in
August - $0.00
September - $5.80
October - $12.74
November - $4.81 (so far)
And about $28 from donations.
Also because of my blog I managed to secure the management of another blog at around $540 per month
So why do I keep going at this blog when there is seemingly so little in it for me? This is a question a lot of bloggers ask themselves and a lot of them give up and stop blogging altogether. I won't give up, I want to be talking about my blog in 2 years time and say 'this is where my blog took me' like Steve Pavlina or Darren Rowse.
The top 10 reasons :
10. To make some money: admittedly not a lot of money is made unless you've been going for a while and you done all the right things and managed to get a good following.
9. To learn something new: I come across blogs, sites and people who teach me something new and it keeps me updated in the world of the blogosphere and the net itself. I love learning and I am constantly learning when I am blogging.
8. It can land you some extra work: I have managed to secure some extra work managing a blog which provides me with a bit extra money every month and I expect after doing this for a year or more there will be more work in the future.
7. Build connections: having a blog allows you to meet with a whole host of interesting people. It's good to have a group of people who have the same interests. They can often help provide ideas, help with professional services etc.
6. To help your business: If you have a business, blogging can make you seem more human and you can interact with your customers a lot easier and a lot quicker.
5. Establish yourself as an authority on your subject: This is a big reason people start to blog and there are a lot of people out there blogging who are experts in their field and their knowledge can make them a great resource and also build up their following.
4. Traffic to your generic sites: By their very nature blogs are updated regularly and therefore have more food for search engines to digest. You can create more traffic to your generic websites as well as interacting directly with your customers.
3. It develops discipline and ability: Through natural selection a lot of bloggers will give up for many different reasons. Those who stay at it develop a discipline of writing which can have spin off effects in their own lives I have noticed I am more focused in general and I am more task oriented in my regular work. I know I need to write at least 3000 words per week to keep my blog updated and bringing in regular readers. If you write this much every week for 1 year you will have written around 150,000 words in 1 year. The average number of words per book written is 120,000 - 200,000. So you will, in effect, have written a books worth in 1 year. If you have aspirations of writing a book, blogging is a fantastic discipline to get into.
2. To know yourself: Strange one this but over the last few months I have come to know myself a lot better than before. I have figured out inner resources I didn't know I had. Intellectually and spiritually I have grown. It takes a child to write a blog, it takes a man to continue writing. When you see nobody is reading your blog, nobody is commenting on your blog and you don't even know if anybody has seen it, it takes guts to keep writing those 3000 words per week. Believe me in the dark hours of 5am you will get to know yourself.
1. Passion: At the end of the day you wouldn't continue blogging if you didn't have a passion for what you are writing about. I have a deep passion for giving people the tools to help themselves in their own lives. I know what it's like to have those tools given to you and how long it takes to change; I don't want to be someone who was here in 2006 and gone in 2007. This will be a lifelong quest for me. If you have the passion for what you are blogging about don't give up.
If you build it, they will come!
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